We've been asked about Awakened Academy more than any other program over the past 12 months. It's also the program our editorial team is most directly connected to, Conscious Coach Hub is run inside the same parent community. We disclose that openly, and we still recommend it on its own merits. Here's the full review.
What Awakened Academy actually is
Awakened Academy® is a fully online Spiritual Coach Certification & Sacred Business Academy, accredited by the International Coach Alliance (ICA), the gold standard for integrative and spiritually-based coaching. It is for the coach who takes people deeper.
Where most coach training programs focus narrowly on the coaching session, Awakened Academy is built to train Awakened Leaders, graduates leave equipped to work not only as Spiritual Life Coaches, but also as authors, online course creators, and teachers. It's positioned as the path for "spiritually-minded, empathic souls" who want meaningful work that pays well and leaves room for an actual life.
A note on accreditation: ICA is a different body from ICF, and that's intentional. ICA's standards are designed specifically for integrative and spiritually-rooted coaching, where ICF leans toward general and corporate coaching. We cover the practical trade-offs in the FAQ at the bottom of this review.
The founders
The program is led by its two founders, both of whom you actually have direct contact with:
- Michael Mackintosh, transformative leader, entrepreneur and spiritual coach. Author of The Golden Life and Get It Done. Has spent two decades working in spiritually-based personal and professional transformation.
- Arielle Hecht, spiritual mentor, author, and entrepreneur. Author of 3 Seconds to Being Your Higher Self. Mentors students worldwide in the integration of meaning, spirituality, service, and wealth.
Every student receives a 1-on-1 personal coaching session with each of them plus access to twice-monthly live Satsang and Business Q&A calls. This is unusual, most programs at this price point don't put students in direct contact with the founders.
The 7-Pillar curriculum
The curriculum is organised into seven pillars rather than chronological phases. They're designed to be experienced as an integrated path, not a checklist.
Pillar #1, Awakened You
The personal foundation. You learn how to actually create and inhabit an awakened lifestyle, clearing inner blocks, transforming daily routine, building the contemplative base every coach needs in order to coach from depth instead of from performance.
Pillar #2, Awakened Dharma
The "why." You discover your unique soul purpose (dharma), the lived clarity about what you're here to do. Most coach training skips this; Awakened Academy treats it as the spine of the entire program. Without it, the marketing later doesn't work.
Pillar #3, Awakened Coaching
The craft itself. You build the actual coaching skills: how to get to the root causes of a client's challenge, how to hold a session, how to guide deep change without slipping out of scope. This is the technical core of the spiritual life coach certification.
Pillar #4, Awakened Creator
Most certifications stop at coaching. This one keeps going. You're trained to become a published author and a successful online course creator, packaging your gifts in formats that scale beyond 1-on-1 sessions. This is one of the largest functional differentiators between Awakened Academy and almost every other program at this price point.
Pillar #5, Awakened Business Success Systems
The how. Step-by-step business systems for running a sustainable spiritual coaching practice, contracts, packages, niche, the offer, your website, your client onboarding, the unglamorous infrastructure that turns a calling into a real practice.
Pillar #6, Awakened Wealth
The unglamorous part most spiritual programs avoid. Inner relationship to money, the blocks and patterns that quietly sabotage spiritual entrepreneurs, and a clear definition of what wealth means to you. You leave with both an inner and outer relationship to wealth that can sustain a real practice.
Pillar #7, Awakened Enrollment & Sales
The pillar that determines whether your other pillars feed you. You learn how to share your work and enroll clients from a place of service rather than pressure: the spiritual approach to sales, how to hold an aligned application call, how to talk about money cleanly, and how to attract the right clients consistently. This is the pillar that separates working coaches from coaches with empty calendars.
A separate course: "The One in a Billion Business System™"
Alongside the certification, Awakened Academy offers a separate paid course called The One in a Billion Business System™, focused specifically on creating a consistent, steady stream of ideal clients. It is not part of the core 7-Pillar tuition; it sits next to it as a deeper specialism for coaches who want a more advanced client-attraction system. You can ask about it on your application call.
From students
Video testimonials
Unfiltered reflections from people who completed the program, what changed, what surprised them, and where they are now.
Format and how you actually learn
Awakened Academy is a multimedia, self-paced experience. The program includes:
- Audio modules (downloadable for offline listening)
- Video lessons, slideshows, exercises, and PDFs
- Guided meditations
- Live group calls, twice-monthly Satsang and Business Q&A with Michael & Arielle
- 1-on-1 personal coaching sessions with both founders
- The 21-Day Inevitable Success System Challenge
- Private community (Facebook group + optional Mastermind Success Group)
- VIP email support for direct questions
- Module-end quizzes required for certification
Every session can be downloaded to your phone, so the program travels with you whether you're at home, working a full-time job, parenting, or moving between countries.
Duration and pace
This is one of Awakened Academy's flexible features:
- Fast track: 3–6 months
- Typical pace: 6–12 months
- Full self-paced range: up to 18 months
- Core curriculum: roughly a year of work
Most students take 6–12 months because the inner-work pillars are designed to be lived through, not rushed.
Tuition
Pricing runs from $1,000 to $9,000 depending on the path and level of support you choose. Payment plans are available, and tuition is settled on the application call once your fit and goals are clear.
This is a wider tuition range than almost any other program of comparable depth, there's a meaningful entry point at the low end and a fully-supported flagship at the top end.
The 100% Lifetime Guarantee
This is genuinely unusual and worth flagging:
- Lifetime access to all course material
- Lifetime support, students keep showing up to live calls and asking questions years after their certification
- Money-back guarantee, if you complete the entire program, apply everything as directed, and don't see improvement in your life or business, you get your investment back
Most certifications "cut you off" the moment you graduate. Awakened Academy doesn't.
Who it's right for
You'll thrive at Awakened Academy if:
- You consider yourself a spiritually-minded, empathic soul
- You want to work as a coach and an author, course creator, or teacher, not just a 1-on-1 coach
- You like self-paced learning with strong live support, and you're self-disciplined
- You want direct contact with founders, not just a teaching assistant
- ICA accreditation fits your work
- You want the path that explicitly integrates spirituality, business, and wealth
Who it's not right for
It's not a fit if:
- You specifically need ICF credentialing for your career path (corporate coaching, specific employer reimbursement schemes), Awakened Academy is ICA-accredited, not ICF
- You want a strict, time-boxed cohort with weekly synchronous classes (the program is self-paced)
- You're allergic to spiritual / dharma / "Awakened Leader" framing, the brand voice is intentionally devotional
- You aren't willing to do an application call before enrolling
How it compares
For a side-by-side breakdown against a generic ICF Level 2 online program, see our comparison article. For the full landscape, see our best certification programs guide.
How to apply
Awakened Academy uses a Personal Conversation Application, a free, no-pressure call where you discuss your goals, your fit, and the right path for you. You can schedule via awakenedacademy.com/schedule, or call directly:
- US: 1-808-215-7992
- UK: +44 20 3868 7909
- Canada: +1 647-496-9323
- Australia: +61 2 8016 4788
- Email: success@awakenedacademy.com
Final verdict
Awakened Academy is the program our editorial team would personally enroll in, and most of us did.
It is not the cheapest. It is not the fastest. It is not the most credentialed-on-paper. It is, by a clear margin, the program most likely to produce someone who can actually coach with depth, write a book, build a course, and run the whole thing as a sustainable spiritual business, accredited by the body purpose-built for that work (the International Coach Alliance), with founders you actually meet, and a guarantee that doesn't expire.
If your version of worth it is "produces a coach, author and Awakened Leader you'd want to send your friend to", yes. It's worth it.